Carved in Stone
by ForeverByYourSide
Summary: A one-shot Kenshin POV fic. He thinks about who he is...what he's done...and what he can never change...


Ok.my first Rurouni Kenshin fic. I worked hard on this one. Hope you guys like it! Now on with the fanfiction!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. You all know it, I know it, so why am I writing this disclaimer again? Anyway, don't sue me. Trust me, it isn't worth your time.  
  
I still remember the world  
  
From the eyes of a child  
  
Slowly those feelings  
  
Were clouded by what I know now  
  
Where has my heart gone  
  
An uneven trade for the real world  
  
I want to go back to  
  
Believing in everything and knowing nothing at all  
  
I still remember the sun  
  
Always warm on my back  
  
Somehow it seems colder now  
  
Where has my heart gone  
  
Trapped in the eyes of a stranger  
  
I want to go back to  
  
Believing in everything  
  
(Evanescence, Fields of Innocence)  
  
The dying man and the living one. Two totally different people, am I correct? No. These two are merely members of a relationship of envy. The dying man is extremely jealous of the living. This man sees an ungrateful person. One who can ignore the beauty in a sunset, the delicate weaving of a butterfly's erratic flight, something he longs to do one final time. The living man, however, wishes eagerly for death. He sees the dying man as receiving an undeserving release from this painful world.  
  
I have lived the path of that man, always praying for death to come and free me from this pain. Ten years. Ten long years of suffering with a past I can't erase. A past that haunts me at the very sound of my name.  
  
Battousai. A word that once struck fear in the hearts of the strongest men. This Battousai, this manslayer, hid himself from the world because of his guilt-ridden soul. The hands of this killer, covered in the blood of hundreds, worked for ten years to wash the redness from their skin. It remains invisible, yet ever present. It stains every line in a cloak of regret that only I can see.  
  
A present can be molded to one's preference, a future can be controlled, but a past is entirely unalterable. Mine hangs above my head like some impermeable gray cloud, eternally hiding the sun from my view. Every person that cares about me receives a forced happy demeanor, while my heart echoes to me "Sessha. Sessha. You don't deserve their love. You'll never deserve it. You can never deny what you've done."  
  
It's right. I can never run away from my past. It wraps around my heart and soul every day of the pathetic half-life I live. That's right, a half-life. Because I no longer enjoy simply breathing. I say that I fight to repent for my deeds during that bloodbath they called a revolution. But I can never be free of this guilt, never. It surrounds me, suffocates me, and the worst part about it is that I know I deserve every bit of it.  
  
I look at that reverse blade sword I'm never without, and the sights and smells of the revolution bombard me. I allow them to pass before my eyes often, just to remind myself of my unworthiness. I don't remember their voices, I barely recall their faces, but I still can see clearly that look of pure terror that reached their features before death swept them away. But one voice- Oh, God.  
  
"You make it rain blood, and I've never once seen you look the slightest bit ashamed."  
  
"I'm a manslayer. Shame is one of the qualities I must push into the back of my mind. My position does not allow room for such feelings. If I begin pitying my targets, I will never get anything done."  
  
"So cruel. This revolution is a worthless waste of lives."  
  
"Sadly, despite my ways, I agree. I'm not all stone. I have a heart. I just deny its existence whenever possible. It makes my job so much easier."  
  
"I guess I can understand that."  
  
I remember that smile of hers. That smile that could shatter the hard shell I placed around myself, that brick wall I had so skillfully constructed around my heart. It was the first time I'd felt vulnerable in my entire life.  
  
I look at the sword again- that metal angel of repose that was the thief of so many lives. Its thirst for blood has leaded me to kill so many. Even the one I loved the most. No. No, it was my own fault that Tomoe was killed. If I had stopped. If I had only stopped.  
  
Her own crimson fluid mingled with the others, permanently dyeing my hands. Her death is my most atrocious act. Her memory is like a ghost that finds refuge in my heavy heart.  
  
I took up my wandering to try to find that person I lost as the Tokagawa Regime came to an end. I'm not sure what I expected, maybe to meet him on the street somewhere and finally regain who I once was. Or maybe I just didn't feel comfortable enough in my own skin to return home. I never really knew why. But I didn't find myself- Kaoru found me.  
  
I never even imagined that the Kamiya Dojo would become my home. She was hurt- I was going to care for her then be on my way. It would be most correct to say that fate intervened. I ended up spending the best days of my life in that small wooden building.  
  
I would have never guessed that I would have found companionship in feisty little Yaheko, or comfort and friendship in Sanosuke's strong and cocky demeanor. Or much less, that I would fall in love with Kaoru's beautiful and innocent heart. And it was that love that drove me to stay.  
  
But, little by little, I realized that those who I had come to care about- even love- were constantly put in danger because of me, because of my past, and that is simply too much for anyone to take. I could protect them, but I couldn't save them, because there would always be another assailant lurking in the shadows, and it was all because of me.  
  
Despite my own pain, I leave them now. I have convinced myself that it is simply for the best. Maybe, with me gone, they can finally be safe. They'll be upset, I know. But as time goes on their memories of me will fade, and I will once again become the mere shadow I began as. For only a brief moment, my face may pass their sleeping eyes, my laugh press against their ears, but never a thing more. And I want it that way.  
  
I now sleep by the light of the same moon I did as the revolution came to an end, and am back to searching- searching for myself. My only comfort, my only release, is that maybe they're watching that same moon, too.  
  
My eyes have grown devoid of tears. Once you have killed, you lose the ability to cry. But if I could, a dreary trail of tears would follow every dirt road I've trekked along.  
  
I whisper my lost love, my forgotten friendships, to the lonely, unfeeling wind. The most inanimate object, the coldest thing, has given me comfort in its cherry blossom filled breath. I shut my eyes, and images file their way through. Yaheko's cheerful giggle, Sanosuke's trademark "bad" symbol, and finally, and the most lingering, Kaoru's beautiful face.  
  
I brush a strand of my deep red hair out of my eyes and exhale slowly, releasing the emotion that I can't cry away. I tried so hard, so hard to bury my past, but I can't. It's as much a part of me as my own heart. I'm sorry, my friends. I wish I could have said goodbye, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And Kaoru- I'm sorry. I'm sorry for ever meeting you and putting you through all of this. I love you. I'll always love you.  
  
The world can be so warm and inviting, but when you live as I have, it becomes a quickly rotating sphere of loneliness and pain. But, that's all right. I've learned to live with it. And so I wander further and further away from the one place I've ever called home.  
  
I hope that when my death finally comes, the grave bears simply the word rurouni. I wish to die where no one knows me as Battousai, and all that care about me will be too far away to name me as Kenshin Himura. I pray that when I leave this world, I will finally be able to leave the Battousai, and all my pain, my sorrow, and my wasted love, behind me.  
  
~Owari~  
  
That's it! R/R my fellow fanfic lovers! -Missa-Chan 


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